Payback (17 page)

“Yes, sir, ringing.”

“Captain Johnson's office, sir. How may I assist you?”

“This is Secret Service Agent Sanborn. I have an extreme emergency and need to speak to your CO.”

“Sorry, sir, he's not on the base. Would the OD do?”

“Yes. Get him.”

A moment later a ring and an answer.

“Officer of the Day.”

“Hello, this is Secret Service Agent Sanborn with President Dunnington's party in the Sierra Nevadas. We have a problem.”

“Yes, sir. How can I confirm your identity?”

“You can't. What's your name?”

“Lieutenant Commander Richard Jones, sir.”

“Good, Commander. We're in the Sierras west of Sacramento with President Dunnington and some of his top advisors. We've been attacked by an armed force and our three HU-53's have been destroyed. We're at the Saddle Mountain Ranch resort south of Saddle Mountain peak about three miles. We need help. An armed force from two choppers has captured the ranch house and we're in the brush. You can contact us on SATCOM channel two. Do you have any Marine Recon on your base?”

“No, sir. Not exactly an infantry-type outfit.”

“Any SEALs?”

“No, sir, they're in San Diego.”

“Well, get somebody in here fast, before dark if you can. We're in big trouble and it's on your head, Commander. My name is Sanborn, with the Secret Service. Now get cracking and report back to us on SATCOM channel two within twenty minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Out.”

Sanborn made some adjustments on the dials and called his home office in Washington, D.C. There was an immediate response. The SATCOM transmissions were scrambled, and thus perfectly secure.

“Secret Service, Presidential Detail.”

“Joe, this is Sanborn with the President. We've been attacked by a foreign military unit and lost our three birds.
We're scattered in the brush and woods around the ranch we came to. We need help and we need it now. We contacted Lemoore Air Station, but they don't have much help. Get us some Marine Recon or SEALs or Airborne Rangers. Get some armed forces here as quickly as you can.”

“This for real, Sanborn?”

“Absolutely. Get us some help or I'll personally tear your balls off. Now move something.”

“I'll tell the chief and we're on it.”

They signed off and Sanborn nodded. “Now we'll see who can get somebody here first.”

Before they could move on, an amplified voice boomed over the mountainside.

“Secret Service agents. This is a warning to you. We know that you and President Dunnington and his top aides are here. We are asking you to come back to the ranch house and be comfortable. Tonight it will be dark and then cold, miserable, and perhaps wet out there.”

The English had a decided accent to it.

“We encourage you to come in because we have captured a pretty lady named Maria Alvarez. We also have six members of the staff of workers. We simply require all of you to report in within an hour, or we will start executing one of the captives for every half hour you are late. Is that clear? We would start with the owner, Mr. Bronson, but unfortunately he challenged us with a pistol and was shot to death. So, the first hostage to be shot precisely at one-thirty
P
.
M
. will be Mrs. Alvarez.”

Bill Bradford shook his head at the commander's announcement. “No wet suits, you said, so that means we have another land-slogger assignment.”

“More like a mountain-climbing event,” Murdock said. “Now listen up, we don't have a lot of time. We fly out of North Island in a little less than an hour. The trip could last a couple of days, so take an extra set of cammies. The usual mix of weapons, with the snipers on both squads to use the new Knight Mk 11. We haven't had much work on that new weapon yet, so this will be its test under fire.

“Now to the particulars. We'll be going out of North Island in the luxury flight on the Gulfstream directly into Sacramento. From there we will move by CH-46 to a road three miles from the Saddle Mountain Ranch. It's a working cattle ranch, which also has luxury accommodations for city slickers who want to be cowboys for a week. From our drop-off point we will move with two platoons of Army Rangers toward the ranch, with the hope that we can find the North Koreans who have attacked the President and his party, take them down, and rescue the civilians.”

There was a yell and lots of loud talk.

“You mean somebody tried to hit the President?” Luke Howard asked.

“Correct. He was on a secret conference with his top aides, and two choppers bored in and blew up three CH-53's and we don't know what else. They are hurting and need help.
The hit took place just about 9
A
.
M
. It's now 1115. We fly out at 1200, so let's get moving.

“That's a huge wilderness area up there in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We'll be around the five-thousand-foot level and near Saddle Mountain. That's somewhere near the South Fork of the American River. Questions?”

“Cold-weather gear?” Franklin asked.

“Snow should be long gone up there by now. We might wind up wearing both sets of cammies. No special cold gear.”

Murdock looked around. No more questions. “All right, let's get our gear ready. Double on the ammo. We'll all take drag bags for additional ammo. We won't have any friendly local supplier. We take what we'll need including six MREs per man. Senior Chief, see if you can get some of those good ones with the heating pouches. That's it. Let's move.”

 

The sleek Gulfstream II, which the Navy called the VC-11, rolled off North Island using only handheld blinkers from the tower for control. Because of the blackout the tower was down. The bird was usually reserved for VIPs for fast trips. Lately the SEALs had been in the fast-trip category and had used the business jet several times. It was made by Grumman, now called Gulfstream Aerospace, held a crew of three, and could carry nineteen passengers in the best airliner recliner seats.

The Gulfstream has a wingspan of sixty-nine feet and is eighty feet long. It uses two Rolls Royce MK 511-8 turbofan engines that push her along at 505 miles an hour with a ceiling of 43,000 feet. Range was no problem getting to Sacramento. The bird would do 4,275 miles without gulping any new fuel.

They landed VFR at the Sacramento airport, working through a series of blinker signals and filtering in with hardly any air traffic. Flight time was a little over an hour and a half. More than twenty airliners sat on the ground, not able to take off due to the blackout that had shut down all air-control facilities. The Gulfstream pilots did a lot of looking around the sky before they brought the ship into Sacramento
airport, to be sure that there were no other aircraft in the same area at the same time.

They taxied to the transient plane hangar and were met by an airport safety jeep. The driver talked to Murdock. Then the SEALs picked up their drag bags and gear and headed past the business jet fifty yards to where a CH-46 sat with two armed guards around it. The time was slightly after 1335.

Jaybird couldn't let it pass. “Hey, guys, we in a hot LZ here or what? Why the cannons?”

A second class glared at him. “Loudmouth, they just lost three CH-53's over there where we're going. We don't want to lose this one. Any objections?”

“None at all,” Bradford said as he walked past the guard and into the bird. The rest of the SEALs climbed on board and sat down where they could find a spot on the floor. This wouldn't be a luxury flight. Murdock and DeWitt talked with the pilot outside, and then all came in and the two guards moved to the side doors and hooked up their machine guns on swivel mounts.

“How many civilians are we hunting up there in cold country?” Canzoneri asked.

Murdock looked up from a map he was studying. “Our orders didn't say. Just the Presidential party. Could be ten or twelve, maybe with six or eight Secret Service agents along.”

“Those guys still carry the Ingrams under their coats?” Jefferson asked. “Think for an outing like this they'd get some long guns to take along.”

Murdock pulled down his lip mike on the Motorola. “Listen up. The pilot gave me a message from Don Stroh. There were supposed to be two Army Ranger platoons waiting for us here with their choppers going along on this ride. They got hung up at an airport and the locals wouldn't let them take off. They were up the coast somewhere that's still blacked out, and the local sheriff clamped down and blocked the runways with fire-fighting trucks. So for the first phase, we're on our own.”

“Shit, they don't get to come to the party,” Jaybird said. “Bet they are pissed.”

“We've got six hours of daylight left. Take us maybe half an hour to get up to the PD. From the Point of Departure,
we'll work up hill toward the ranch. We'll go cross-country, and we don't know where the sneaky North Koreans are, or if they're still even in the area.”

“Wilderness, you said, up in there,” DeWitt said. “Where could they go?”

“From the sound of things, the Ks have been planning this thing for some time,” Lam said. “They could have come in as civilians, hired a pair of choppers, and moved in forty men, made their hit, and gone out the same way they choppered in.”

The engines on the big chopper started and revved up, and soon they lifted off and flew northeast.

“We'll be about ten miles north of Placerville,” Murdock shouted to DeWitt, who sat beside him. “Damn rugged country. I don't know how the owner gets to his ranch. Probably made his own road into the place.”

“This dude ranch. Do they have guests there while the President is there?” DeWitt called.

Murdock shook his head. “Last radio message said no guests, just the President and his team and Secret Service.”

“No recon, no data, we're really going in blind.”

“That's why you earn the big bucks, DeWitt. Our first job is to find the ranch and see if anyone is there. Depending on what we find, we figure out what to do next.”

“We have the SATCOM,” DeWitt said.

“The pilot says he's to stay in the general area. If we want him we should use our Motorolas, or fire a red flare. He'll jump ahead if we're getting out of the five-mile radio range.”

“He can talk to his home base?”

“Right, Lemoore Naval Air Station down below Fresno.”

They were quiet then, watching the country out the side doors. The chopper had moved up to a thousand feet over the terrain, and had to keep climbing as the ground rose into the foothills, then into the Sierra Nevadas themselves.

The crew chief came back and hollered at Murdock. “Ten minutes to our LZ. The lieutenant says he'll let you off, then move back three miles and shut down.”

“Tell him to keep his Motorola on too,” Murdock said. The sailor nodded and went back to the cockpit.

Five minutes later the chopper pilot found a road through
the wilderness, and followed it to a spot where a small bridge spanned a stream. He put the bird down just past the bridge and the SEALs poured out each door, setting up an immediate perimeter around the CH-46.

When the SEALs had cleared the ship, the pilot lifted off, showering the men with dust, dirt, and a few stray pebbles from the downward wash of the rotor blades. Then it was up and away. The SEALs formed up in twin diamonds and began to move on a compass bearing due west. The immediate area had an open space near the creek and extending a quarter of a mile to the start of the timbered slope that lifted upward.

They established a pace of about three miles to the hour, due to the altitude and the drag bags. The idea of the bags was that by pulling them along, most of the weight rested on the ground and the man didn't have to carry it, just drag it.

The timber was mostly pine and some fir, with clumps of oak and cedar. They moved through it with Lam fifty yards out front watching, checking out any problems he could see.

They had covered a mile and a half up the slopes when they came to a fence. It was new, with steel posts set in concrete and four strands of bright new barbed wire. The SEALs stepped between the middle two strands, and then pulled the drag bags under the bottom one.

On the point, Lam hit the dirt when he heard something to his left. He lifted up and looked, then dropped down. A moment later a pair of steers walked past some brush, grazing as they moved slowly toward the men. Neither animal looked up. Lam grinned and reported his find to the troops, then kept moving forward.

A mile later they came to the top of a sharp little ridge, and Lam eased up so he could look over it without skylining himself and becoming an easy target. He peered under the brim of his floppy hat and just over the ridgeline. Ahead a thousand yards on a broad mesa, he could see the ranch buildings. He called up Murdock, who took a look at them with his binoculars.

“Okay, we've got the buildings. Looks like they're set on a flat area. I can't see any movement or any bodies. How about you?”

“Saw one man run from the ranch house out to the next building to the left. Only action. So there are troops in there.”

“So where is the President and his people?”

“What would we do in the same situation?” Lam asked. “If we had this spot and overwhelming firepower moved in, we wouldn't be able to hold the buildings, right? So where would we go?”

“Scatter and make a lot of trails for the bad guys to try to follow,” Murdock said.

“Makes sense. About what I'd do. So, the President and his advisors and the Secret Service shields probably aren't in the ranch house or the other buildings.”

“Roger that, but there could still be some of the staff. You don't run a place like this with Mom and Pop.”

“True, so we can't hit them with the twenties.”

They stared at the setup again. Murdock moved his view to the left and grunted. “See to the left of the buildings, that flat area just below the level of the ranch house?”

“Oh, yeah, Skipper. Looks like three burned-out Fifty-Threes.”

“Agree, and next to them are?”

“Two smaller choppers, maybe the ones the bad guys arrived in.”

The two SEALs looked at each other and grinned.

“Oh, yeah, what do you make the range, Skipper?”

“Eight hundred yards,” Murdock said, and pumped a 20mm round into the chamber on the Bull Pup, then sighted in the laser on the chopper nearest him. When he had the target he squeezed the trigger. Seconds later the airburst ripped through the pristine-pure high Sierra air right over the first chopper. Shrapnel rained down on it, and some hit the second chopper nearby. Murdock didn't use the laser on the second round. He sighted in and fired. The contact round jolted into the engine compartment of the bird, and it exploded in a gush of flames, soon involving the second helicopter.

“Two men just ran out of the ranch house,” Lam said. “They are looking at their transportation out of there. Now they are zigzagging back to the house like they expected to be shot at.”

“So, they know we're here,” Murdock said. “Let's get the troops up here and move forward.” He flipped his lip mike down from where it rested against his floppy hat.

“You men heard two shots. We just splashed two enemy choppers. There are terrorists at the ranch house. Let's chogie that way and figure out what the hell to do.”

Ed Dewitt came up with Jaybird and Senior Chief Sadler.

“How many men?” Jaybird asked.

Murdock rubbed his jaw. “Chopper that size could pack in maybe eight men. So we're looking at sixteen, maybe eighteen tops.”

“The fucking odds don't seem fair,” Sadler said. “I mean, those poor sods up there don't have a tinker's damn chance in hell.”

Murdock put down his glasses. “DeWitt, take Bravo up that gully over there and position at the left side of the buildings. My squad will work the right end and when we get within three hundred yards, we'll take a look and see what we have. Move out.”

Murdock held his Alpha Squad until DeWitt had traversed the hundred yards to the left side of the complex and the ravine. Then Murdock moved his men over the ridge in the cover of the trees and down the far side. Eight hundred yards to the ranch house. He wondered if those inside would realize that a much better armed force was coming against them and that they couldn't hold the buildings. Would they flee into the brush and trees as well and try to get lost? It depended what they had done so far. If they had captured and murdered the President and his staff, their job would be done and they would exfiltrate out of the area, and try to reach a Korean settlement in San Francisco or Los Angeles where they would blend in.

Lam led the squad as scout. He moved from tree to tree and hurried through brushy areas, then went flat as he saw something ahead he didn't understand.

“Come take a look, Skipper.”

Murdock moved up, bellied down in the grass next to Lam, and pulled out his glasses.

“Off about three fingers from that big pine out there, looks like a red splotch. Could it be a red shirt or a dress?”

They concentrated with their binoculars. “Moving,” Murdock said. “Oh, yes, that's a dress. Must be part of the President's party or staff. Get up there without getting shot by the Secret Service and let them know we're coming.”